Elderly people who call for help after a fall at home will no longer be left waiting for hours on the floor, the head of the NHS has said, as she bids to keep patients out of hospital and stop the service being overwhelmed this winter.
Amanda Pritchard said she would start a new national service within weeks under which community teams would offer immediate help to people who had had an accident but had avoided serious injury.
Pritchard, who took over as chief executive of NHS England last year, said a quarter of less severe 999 calls in January involved falls. The new teams could stop 55,000 elderly people a year being taken to hospital, she said.
All NHS areas will be told this week to establish the service before a “very, very, very challenging winter” for the health service.
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Source: The Times, 16 October 2022
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